I must admit that I was late to the mailing list game (more on why later in this post), but for indie authors looking to build a fan base then having a mailing list is something that you need to have. Why you might be asking? Well it’s simple.

Readers buy from their favourite author’s over and over again.

Now you could let them discover you the old fashioned way, by browsing the Amazon store and seeing your new book there. But what if you could let your fans know that you just released a new book as soon as it’s published? How powerful do you think it could be to have lots of readers buy your book all at once thus shooting your Amazon ranking sky-high so that even more potential fans can find you?

It’s much easier to sell your book to an established reader base than it is to find new readers. That’s a fact.

There are a few options that you can choose but personally I think the two best options are Aweber or Feedburner. Yes I know MailChimp and a few others are also wildly popular but I think these are your two main options and here is why.

Aweber

If you’ve got the bucks to spend then I suggest going with Aweber. It’s got the best reputation and back when I was an internet marketer I used it exclusively. It is however $20 a month (or more depending on how many subscribers you’ve got). But the customization features, tracking and reporting are second to none.

You can set up autoresponders (pre-set up a sequence of emails that can be sent to new subscribers to help build a message or give them content in a set order – which could be perfect for fiction author’s building a story).

Feedburner

I’m a cheapskate however and I use Feedburner. Now feedburner isn’t a true mailing list provider in that it only let’s people subscribe to your blog feed (so you’ll need a blog not a static website to use it). But they can do so either traditionally through a feed reader or by email and get posts sent directly to their email box.

You also can’t set up special autoresponder messages or email your subscribers directly. (Plus I hate the stupid annoying captcha they use with email subscribers, grrr).

But it’s free.

And it’s actually pretty powerful if you know how to use it.

I chose to use Feedburner simply because I couldn’t really see how much extra information I’d give subscribers over my blog posts and if you use a feed footer (show you this in a sec) then you can customise messages to subscribers anyway.

Getting Subscribers

Obviously you need to promote your subscription box. I think the top right hand corner is probably the best place to put it. As you can see I give readers the option to choose from either the RSS feed or by email. (If you use Aweber just promote your email signup rather than the rss feed option).

I’ve also decluttered my sidebar so readers ONLY have the option of either subscribing or reading the most popular posts. They are not distracted with anything else.

You can also promote your subscription options at the end of posts so that after they’ve read your amazing content they can’t wait to sign up to hear more from you.

It takes time to build up a fan base so be patient. But gradually you’ll start to see your traffic and subscribers increase over time.

Promoting To Your Subscribers

Now obviously you are getting subscribers so that you can eventually promote your books and other things to them, but here is where it gets tricky because you don’t want to be seen as a spammer. This is actually the reason that I resisted email marketing for so long, because I had been burned with some shady internet marketers in the past who just sent offer after offer to subscribers and it was too much. So I unsubscribed from nearly every list I was on and vowed never to sign up for another list. So it was hard for me to come to terms with starting my own email list.

However I think that if you provide good quality content (and I try my best to do so) then you should have a way that your subscribers can get that information regularly without having to come back to your website time and time again.

So how do you promote to them if you don’t want to be seen as a spammy marketer?

The way I have been doing it is via rss footers. Rss footers will add a message at the bottom of your feeds (both rss & email). So my subscribers get the blog post sent directly to them and at the bottom I’ll have something like “I’ve just released my new book, check it out at Amazon (link)”. That way they are still getting the quality information that they signed up for but still can go on and find your new books as well. I’ve added a rss footer to this feed to show you how it works.

If you are using Aweber then you can just email them directly with a link to your new book but still make sure you are subtle and don’t bombard your readers with sales pitches. Remember they want information first, not to be sold to.

Since I’m with Feedburner my posts get sent out once per day (if I post anything). But since I only post weekly (usually) they only get one email/feed a week. Personally I don’t think you should send out any more than one or two per week. After that it gets a bit much. And don’t let it go too long either; they should hear from you at least once per month or else they might forget who you are!

So there you go. Why authors need a mailing list. Hope it inspired you to start your own and build your fanbase.

T xx

P.S. If you are a subscriber, make sure you check out how I’ve used the rss footer at the bottom of this post (blog readers won’t see it of course).

Last week I noticed a lot of complaints in a forum that I lurk over some changes in Amazon’s algorithm over which books it chooses to display in certain places such as the “Also Bought” lists. This was causing some Indie authors to panic as their books were no longer being recommended as often and therefore they were losing sales.

Let me be clear for a second. Amazon doesn’t owe you books sales. Just because you put your book on their site does not mean that you should rely on them to sell your book for you.

That’s your job.

Amazon will help you by getting you more exposure, and once your book starts to take off, the sales magic will kick in as you start appearing on more and more lists allowing more and more people to find you. But this will only happen if you have a good book that is selling well to begin with. You’ll need to help yourself first.

You’ll need to find your own readers.

But luckily if you are a nonfiction indie author like I am, there is a lot you can do to get the ball rolling.

Now I’m going to assume that you already have a blog setup somewhere. If you don’t then that’s the first thing you need to do. As a non-fiction indie you NEED a blog. Seriously. SERIOUSLY. That’s how you’ll find your readers.

Obviously this blog is going to promote your book, but it can’t be just a sales brochure. One thing people want on the web is information. As a nonfiction indie that’s what you excel at. Information. Now while the majority of your info will be in your book, you still need to provide tons of information on your topic on your blog.

This will serve two purposes. The first is that it will provide search engine fodder for those searching online for the info. Those people will then find your blog and get the answer to their search query. Now they might at this stage also see in the sidebar that you’ve written a book on the topic as well. That’s good, although they may not be quite ready to buy just yet. But it establishes you as an expert on the topic. It makes you look goooood.

The information on your blog will also gain readers trust in you. If you are giving away all this great info for free then your book must be AMAZING. So you’ve got to have good content on your site. In fact I would say that you should give away 80% of your best stuff for free.

But Tracey if I give away all my best stuff, then no-one will want to buy my book?

You would think that, but in reality that’s not the case. By giving away your best content on your blog not only will people trust you more (and therefore are more likely to become fans and buy your book), but they’ll LINK to your blog or share it on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook as well.

The more people that see your blog, the more traffic you’ll potentially get. And the more traffic you get the more book sales you get.

And the more book sales you get, the more Amazon WILL help promote your book because they will see how popular you are.

Win win.

Nonfiction authors have a tremendous advantage over fiction authors in that the web helps connect people searching for information to those that provide it. To be honest I have no idea how to even start to promote a fiction title – but for us, by building a content rich site that people want to read and visit that is related to our topic then it’s going to attract more and more people and we’ll find our fans.

So it doesn’t matter if Amazon changes its algorithms or not. You want the majority of the traffic to be finding you at your blog anyway because you’ll have much higher conversion rates once people trust you.

You still do want to send them to Amazon, and B&N, and iBooks etc to buy your book though because if you do have increasing rankings on these sites (particularly Amazon) then you’ll climb the ranks and make more sales internally. But since you can’t control what happens on Amazon and what searches (for the most part) that you’ll appear on, then you need to use your own site to funnel the traffic there first.

It’s a really exciting time to be an author right now. For the first time we are able to reach our fans directly, interact with them via comments and through email. And of course if you self-publish today you get to keep the bulk of the profits. Ain’t writing life grand …

Woohoo I’m an author! OK technically I was already an author; because I’ve got two awesome traditionally published books on bookshelves here in Aus – you remember bookstores right, that place that had lots of paper books (paper books? That’s soooo last year).

But as of a few days ago I’m now an INDIE Author too … ooooh *cue the clapping soundtrack and audience oohing and aahing and then suddenly screaming in horror – what have you done Tracey, your writing career is over!

Don’t you just love the cover? It was designed by my brilliant graphic design / illustrator partner (nepotism is alive and well). His brief was that I wanted something that looked both professional but simple but also stood out amongst the rest of the finance books already on Amazon. Plus it had to look good really small (at Amazon thumbnail size). I think it’s awesome. You do too don’t you? Knew it!

So anyway, now that it’s live on Amazon & starting to get distributed via Smashwords, what’s next?

(You mean I have to do more than just write a book – I actually have to market it too? Craaaazy.)

Set Up Your Book Blog

Well of course the first thing is to set up the blog to help market it. Here’s the blog for 5 Simple Rules. There isn’t much there yet – I’ve not really started the marketing plan full force – but its coming – all it good time my friend.

As I plan on doing a series of finance books using the ‘simple rules’ theme – this website will host them all and grow over time. Obviously they will all stay within the same niche ‘finance’ because I might as well stick with what I know best – saving, investing and stuff. (Bank manager: Really Tracey?).

Setting up a blog is relatively simple and I really recommend you go ahead and get yourself a self hosted blog with a domain name that you own. That way you can say and do whatever you like on it without the fear that it might one day get ‘disappeared’.

I’ve been setting up a new blog for nearly every book I write and then a few others to support my writing blogs. That way I can build up a network of sites that can interlink between each other to gain a bit of authority within the search engines.

But I can also use them to network and link out to other people, which brings me to …

Oh and speaking of twitter – I know I promised part two of my twitter marketing post because I ran out of time last week (I’ve got small kids damn it – they need some attention every now and then otherwise people in suits tend to turn up at my doorstep), but I still plan on getting it out soon. Promise ‘k?

Pricing Strategy

Now price was a difficult one for me, because I only had data from hearsay and what other indie authors were reporting. The general consensus is that a good price is a low price. But then you have the other side of the fence who argue that you shouldn’t underestimate what someone might pay for the right book (more so for nonfiction than fiction).

In the end I struggled between two prices. $2.99 and $4.99. I tossed around the pros and cons of both but finally decided on $2.99 for two main reasons. One was that I’m an unknown in the U.S. so I would like people to take a chance on the book, and two, it still is quite short (just over 15,000 words) so I didn’t think that the higher price would represent good value for the length.

But since I’m in control of the process now I can always experiment with price later down the track.

Your 10% Amazon Sampling

Amazon allows its readers to download approximately 10% of the first part of the book to preview before they purchase. That means you had better be sure that your first chapter is AWESOME. You also need to make sure that they get a good sampling so it’s a good idea to move a lot of the front matter like About the Author, Other Books, and Dedications etc to the back of the book.

I personally wouldn’t put anything more than your title, table of contents and copyright in the front so readers can get a bigger sample of your writing. I feel this really will help sell more books.

And while all of your books should be good, I would say that the first chapter should be exceptional to really sell the book.

Professional Looking Cover

I’ve already mentioned the cover briefly above but having a good looking cover really is crucial to selling your book. You’ve heard the old saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” right? That’s bogus. People DO judge a book by its cover so it better look professional and not like it was done by your thirteen year old nephew.

You also should check that the title is readable at a teeny tiny size, since Amazon uses thumbnails on its search pages and you want to grab the reader’s attention quickly.

My rule is to keep it simple and if you can afford it, hire a designer (or have babies with one like I’ve done).

Write More Stuff

Of course the biggest marketing strategy is to write more books! The more books you have available the more likely people can find you. So my second book will be started very soon. Hopefully I’ll have it out within three to four months.

That is unless they have another True Blood marathon on Foxtel over here. Oh Eric .. purrrrr.

I’ve been reading a lot of books lately about author marketing strategies and one particular method that keeps popping up is how authors can use twitter to increase their books sales. John Locke himself said in his latest book “How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months!” that Twitter was a major part of his marketing strategy.

So how can we use Twitter ourselves to effectively market our books to the masses? Is Twitter really a viable strategy?

It can be – but only if used correctly.

Coming from a marketing background, I know the right (and wrong) ways to use Twitter having used it successfully myself. In this blog post I’ll give you some tips and facts so that you can get your message out, build a fan base and still use Twitter etiquette.

Your Name Is Your Brand

The first thing that people see about you on Twitter is your name. Most people use their real names as their twitter profile and with good reason – when you are an author, your name is your brand. People generally don’t follow someone named WriterMom345 but will follow Dean Wesley Smith because he has created a brand out of his name.

Even if you use pen names it’s a good idea to use a real name rather than a cutesy slogan as your Twitter profile. I use my real name @traceyedwards as I’m the brand for my books.

Your Profile Picture

The best author profile pics are usually a headshot of you with a plain background so that your face is easily recognisable. Don’t put a full length picture of you at the beach because when it’s shrunk down to mini size it can be difficult to make out. Likewise don’t use a logo or avatar. Only businesses would use logo’s as their Twitter pic, not people. And don’t use the default egg icon either. No-one follows egg icons.

I use a similar picture across nearly all of my marketing platforms to have a consistent image. This is my pic.

Your Profile Bio

Twitter allows you to create a few lines about who you are and lets you add your website/blog address here as well. This is a chance for people to find out more info on you so you need to create something compelling about yourself and what you do.

Try and keep it light and fun. I tell people I’m an author, but also add a little something extra – that I like Tim Tams (it’s a chocolate biscuit in Australia for those that don’t know). It just makes me seem more real and likeable (because EVERYONE likes Tim Tams don’t they?).

I’ve got a few different websites, so I usually change the web address to whatever I’m working on or promoting at the time. Right now that’s this writer blog as I work to build up a following here.

Automated Direct Messaging

Many Twitter programs will allow you to set up an auto DM so that as soon as someone follows you, you can send them an automated cheery greeting to say thanks for the follow and perhaps send them a link as well.

Please don’t do this. Most people view it as spammy and rude. You need to build up a relationship with your follows before you should market to them. People (me included) will unfollow you immediately if you auto DM us with your links.

Take the time to get to know someone first before trying to sell them something.

Sending Sales Messages

Obviously you are on Twitter because you want to market to your followers however you need to be very careful about this and not come across as too promotional. Generally most marketers follow the 90/10 rule.

That means 90% of your time you should be interacting with people, tweeting (or retweeting) interesting articles that you think your followers would find interesting or just writing down things that happen during your day.

Obviously you don’t want every tweet to be about how your cat just puked up a hairball, but adding a few human elements into your tweets makes you more likeable.

The majority of your time should be building relationships with people, so if someone responds to one of your tweets definitely tweet back to them and so on.

Only 10% of your tweets should be sales related. That’s right ONLY 10% (or even less). If you come across as too salesy then people will start to unfollow you or ignore you so you need to create that magic balance of being fun and interactive while only occasionally throwing in a ‘buy my book’ link.

In fact often it’s better not to even say ‘buy my book’ (unless it’s brand new on Amazon and you want people to go check it out) but rather just talk about it generally like “Just saw I had a great review on Amazon for my book, thanks @randomperson”.

More Soon

I’m running out of writing time (yes I write to a time limit – sorry about that) so I’m going to finish up here but there is still more to tell you about marketing on twitter including how to find your audience, choosing who to follow, your twitter background image, integrating twitter with your blog and much more.